


the next life

by shaziskhalid



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universes, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, So read at ur own risk, crescent city au, i'd rather die than look over my work after i write it, oneshots, soulmate trope, we'll see where this goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:35:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26584507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaziskhalid/pseuds/shaziskhalid
Summary: "I will find you again in the next world--the next life. And we will have that time. I promise."snapshots of all the other lives nesta and cassian find each other in.
Relationships: Nesta Archeron & Cassian, Nesta Archeron/Cassian
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53





	1. "dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, this male"

**Author's Note:**

> each chapter takes place in a different world and life, unless i feel like continuing the storyline from a particular chapter later. basically a collection of short aus :) 
> 
> the theme for this one is "knowing a love is doomed before it even has a chance to begin." bonus points if you can guess which movie this scene is inspired from.

New York, 2002

  
Nesta's favorite type of kisses were the ones that tasted of danger-danger-danger. Where in the terrified breaths before lips met, she could hear warning drums playing in the distance, foreshadowing certain tragedy to come. These kisses were always sharply painful, carrying more hurt more hope, and she couldn't help but want to be hurt.

  
Until Cassian.

  
Standing in the empty subway station, those same warning drums beat in time with her heart. Cassian stared down at her with stony intention, but his hands trembled as they reached for her waist. 

_Can I kiss you, Nesta Archeron?_

She hadn't said no. She hadn't said anything at all, had only stared at him with wideblown eyes until he was only inches away from her.

  
_Danger danger danger!_ her mind screamed, and she could only think, _Not with him, I don't want that type of kiss from him._

  
But it was too late, and it wasn't her choice. His head tilted toward hers, and for a second his mouth hovered above hers, waiting for her to pull back and push him away. She didn't. And then he was kissing her.

  
The ominous beating in her head came to a crescendo, and Nesta couldn't think. She could only stand there, frozen, as his lips pressed hesitantly against hers, and then more firmly. 

  
It hurt so badly it took her breath away. She knew before the kiss was even over--he was going to ruin her. But beneath the fear and the shadow of pain, there was also...revelation. Rightness. Oh, god.

  
She inhaled sharply, struggling to get her air back.

  
Cassian pulled away slowly, and ice cold air replaced his hands as they slipped away from her waist. Nesta's lips were still parted from the kiss. There was something determined in his eyes that terrified her, like he knew what she was thinking. And then, impossibly, he gave a little smile. It was almost pained, like he'd heard the drums, too. 

  
"You let me kiss you," was all he murmured. 

  
The sound of an incoming train blared in the background, but Nesta was still frozen and staring. Trying to comprehend her feelings and Cassian's feelings at the same time. A chill December breeze picked up through the subway tunnel, and her hair lifted as her train screeched to a stop. 

  
The electronic doors slid open with a whoosh. Those same hands that had just been warming her body slid into Cassian's jean pockets, and he took a step back. "You let me kiss you," he repeated, shaking his head. His smile grew wider, but she knew he was still scared. And then he turned around, walking right out into the streets of Brooklyn without another word. 

  
Nesta didn't notice when the subway doors slid shut, or when the train sped away without her inside. When she finally blinked, she realized she was all alone in the underground station. There wouldn't be another train for almost another hour, and by then it would almost be four in the morning. 

  
Shivering in her wool coat and miniskirt, Nesta sat on a dirty bench, reliving the past night.

  
11 p.m.: Cassian sent a text with nothing but an address in Brooklyn. He'd been trying to get her to leave her comfort bubble more often recently, and the late-night message was an unspoken challenge. Nesta accepted.

  
11:45: Nesta arrived at a seemingly abandoned warehouse, dressed up in the skimpiest outfit she could manage without catching frostbite in the New York winter air. Her sisters would have had a heart attack if they'd seen her showing so much skin, but Cassian only looked taken aback for a moment before slipping his hand into hers, leading her deeper into the warehouse. Bass music thumped from somewhere hidden. The raucous noise grew, until they took a turn into a huge, sprawling party. 

  
1 a.m.: Nesta was thoroughly drunk. She'd lost Cassian sometime throughout the night, but now she could see him again. His eyes were on her, and she had to wonder if they'd ever left her in the first place. She grabbed his hand and demanded he dance with her.

2 a.m.: Somehow they ended up outside. She was spinning, laughing. The pure euphoria in her veins burned away any hint of the cold, and from the night sky, snowflakes began to fall. In the middle of a twirl, she stumbled right into Cassian's arms.

3 a.m.: Cassian walked Nesta, still merry and drunk, to the subway station. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou," she laughed, running through the empty station with her arms outstretched. "Best night everrrrrrr!" She almost ran straight into a column. 

  
3:02 a.m.: "I'm really in love with you, huh."

  
3:02 a.m.: Nesta froze. Warning drums.

  
3:03 a.m.: "Can I kiss you, Nesta Archeron?"

  
She had barely moved since. 

  
Sitting in the late night cold, Nesta wondered what a life where she was loved by Cassian looked like. She wondered how her friends would react to the random classmate who was only at Columbia Law because of a full scholarship. She wondered how her father would react to her rejecting the dozens of socialites he had lined up for her hand in marriage to be with some working class kid from the Bronx. 

  
She wondered what it would be like to wake up next to _him_ and not feel bad in any way. It was so rare these days that she didn't feel some kind of shitty, that she could barely imagine what it would be like to wake up feeling _good_.

  
The idea was almost delicious enough to chase away the hurt of the kiss. Like being run through with a sword, her chest still panged from Cassian's words and lips. 

  
And yet, like some sick premonition, she knew. Before the kiss, she could have turned her back on Cassian and moved on easily enough. She might have been left with regrets, but it would have been survivable. Now...

  
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. There was no way out of this. She would love him until she inevitably crumbled; that was what his kiss had promised. He'd cemented his ownership of her fate with that kiss, and the look on his face afterward had told her he knew it, too.

  
As Nesta Archeron waited for the train to take her back to her West Village apartment, the only comfort she had was that when she was destroyed, she would destroy him, too.


	2. "and what do you deserve?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> domestic nessian deal through some old hurts and insecurities together. cassian also gets a little defensive of nesta. modern au.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the pacing is nonexistent with this one but i hope u have fun

Nesta had been asleep for so long that Cassian could no longer feel his legs. He refused to shift underneath her, scared of waking her up, and contented himself with running his fingers through her hair instead.

  
She'd come into the living room of their holiday cabin about an hour earlier and crawled atop him without any words, her only intention that of taking a nap. She was dressed in her lavender flannel nightgown, the one that made her look like a little girl again, claiming she couldn't sleep without him.

  
Now, as he stared down at her too-perfect face, furrowed even in sleep, the insecurities he kept hidden so well from her rushed to the forefront of his thoughts.

  
She had always been so beautiful—not just in her looks, which were the first thing most people noticed, but in her heart and mind. Cassian loved those the most. Like a boy studying the inner workings of a clocktower, he loved taking his time to figure out how she thought and dreamed and felt of things. What he discovered was always surprising, each unveiled fact about her a gift. And yet, it could never escape his notice that the only reason he was surprised by Nesta was because he could never know her. Not fully and completely in the way she deserved, at least. He would always be asking more questions, always stumble just a little when it came to navigating her mind.

  
Cassian felt the overwhelming urge to voice these insecurities aloud.

  
"Did you know," he started softly, hesitantly, "my biggest fear is that one day you'll find someone who understands you better than me?"

  
He was met with silence, of course. 

  
"And the worst part is," he continued, "I don't know if I'd be selfless enough to be happy for you if that day ever came. Because even when you clearly deserve more than me, I can't help but hate whoever is out there that could make you happier than I do."

  
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Nesta used Cassian's chest to push herself into a sitting position.

  
Cassian jerked in surprise, not expecting Nesta to have woken up at his whispers. 

  
"I—" he stuttered. After some moments of struggling, he finally said, "It's the truth."

  
Nesta's sharp eyes narrowed on Cassian in that way they did whenever he was about to be proven thoroughly wrong. "Did you know when we first got together, my sister and your friends took me aside and less-than-vaguely told me to leave you because I would only weigh you down and ruin your life?" She said it all in one rushed breath like she'd been challenged to a debate.

  
Cassian nearly sat upright, but Nesta's hands kept him pinned in place. "They did _what_?" Rage, fiery and directionless, flooded him in a hot rush. That was part-lie; his fury did have a direction. "Why is this the first I'm hearing of this?"

  
"Because it's an embarrassing thing to share." Nesta wasn't backing down on this. "And at the beginning of our relationship, I didn't exactly want to give you ideas."

  
Cassian was hurt, hurt and offended that she could believe those words even for a second. He was even more offended that his own family were the perpetrators.

  
He pretended to be calm for Nesta's sake. "Who exactly said that to you?" He forced an even tone. "I want names."

  
Nesta shrugged. "Feyre, Rhys, Amren..." she trailed off. "They're not the point. The point is I know they're wrong, even if I don't always feel like it." She shrugged again, but this time an ounce of self-consciousness slipped under her brave demeanor. "So stop pretending like you invented insecurities," her voice quickly turned berating, "because that mini-monologue might have been the dumbest shit I've ever heard."

  
Beneath his lingering anger, Cassian's chest warmed. Nesta only called him an idiot when she was feeling especially fierce in her affections. Harsh reprimands were her aggressive way of letting people know she cared, and though it was one of the first things he'd ever found out and wholly accepted about her, some people still refused to see the difference between her declarations of love and her declarations of hate.

  
Some people like his own friends and family. 

  
"Okay," Cassian relented. "Let's assume for a moment that I was wrong, and there's no one out there that could possibly be better for you than me."

  
"It's not an assumption." Nesta pushed her shoulders back. "You _were_ wrong."

  
She was so convincing, Cassian nearly believed her. Maybe with time he would. 

  
"That still leaves what you told me. And even if you're okay with it now, I'm not."

  
"I don't expect you to be," Nesta said. "But I don't want you thinking about other people when this weekend is for us. I didn't drive all the way out to a mountain in the middle of Nowhere, Colorado so you could worry about _them_."

  
Nesta's refusal to say their names told him enough about how she felt on the matter. But also, she was right. The last thing Cassian wanted to do was think about anything that wasn't Nesta. Especially not when she was on top of him in that stupid nightgown.

  
"Alright," he gave in. "What would you rather I worry about, Nesta?" His hands skimmed the hem of the gown that had gotten bunched up around her bare knees.

  
Her gaze turned predatory, and in the next moment her nightgown fell to the floor.

  
Cassian didn't think about much after that.

  
***

  
Nesta and Cassian were in the middle of cooking dinner later that night when Cassian's phone buzzed. He narrowed his eyes at the name on the screen.

  
"Let me get this," he said, wiping his hands on a dishtowel and making his way to their bedroom for privacy.

  
In the dimness of their room, he answered Rhysand's call. "What," he said flatly.

  
"Hello to you, too," Rhys drawled. "You ever planning on leaving that cabin or should we not expect you home for Christmas?"

  
Cassian didn't have the patience for bantering with his brother, but he also knew this wasn't the time to tear Rhys a new asshole. That conversation would have to wait until they returned home. 

  
"I'm actually thinking of extending our stay," Cassian said through his clenched jaw. "Nesta mentioned something today about 'weighing me down' and feeling like a burden, and it's really got me concerned."

  
"...Has it?"

  
"It has. I mean where would she get such a bullshit idea from, you know? I clearly haven't been spending enough time with her if that's what she thinks of herself." Cassian wondered if he could choke someone with passive-aggressiveness. "So yeah, now I have to spend the whole weekend telling my girlfriend I love her." He sighed as if this was a huge hardship for him. "We'll probably be here for the rest of the week. Might not even make it back for Christmas if I feel like keeping her to myself."

  
Rhys cleared his throat, and Cassian hoped he felt uncomfortable. "Good for you, man. If that's what you're dead-set on."

  
"It is."

  
Rhys didn't have much to say after that, but the slightest bit of Cassian's need for revenge had eased. If his family couldn't like Nesta, the least they could do was know how much he loved her. Cassian hung up without saying goodbye back and tossed his phone onto the bed.

  
He hadn't been planning on extending his and Nesta's cabin retreat before his conversation with Rhys, but the plans he'd made up on the spot over the phone were looking undeniably appealing. Maybe they _would_ skip Christmas this year, and only share presents with each other in bed.

  
Cassian returned to the kitchen to find Nesta struggling to wrangle a dangerously sticky, soggy lump of dough. She looked up at him apologetically as he entered. "I tried cooking without you," she said, sounding defeated.

  
"Even though you knew what would come out of it?" Cassian was already pushing his sleeves up to save her attempt at dough.

  
"How hard can _dough_ be? I have to get it eventually, right?"

  
Cassian had to hold down a smile at his girlfriend's cooking skills. "You should wash your hands," was all he said. She was up to her elbows in the weird sticky mixture. 

  
"Right, Cassian?" Nesta repeated, waiting for affirmation.

  
Cassian couldn't lie, so he settled for a kiss on the forehead and the truth. "You'll never have to worry about cooking as long as you have me, sweetheart."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is villainizing the inner circle rational or in-character? no!! is it fun? yes!!!

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this is in an hour sorry


End file.
